What's REALLY going on in politics in Loudoun County, Virginia

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After denouncing concerned parents as engaging in “scare tactics” for having the audacity to ask the all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors to fully fund the school budget, the all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors has been busy rolling out its own scare tactics — ominously warning of the crippling tax burden this would impose on the struggling, hard-working property owners in the wealthiest county in the nation.

Last week Supervisor Suzanne Volpe (R-Algonkian), once again making an impressive bid to open an unchallengeable lead in the race for the coveted Dumbest Supervisor Award, sent out one of her “news[sic]letters” full of numerology purporting to show how very, very bad it will be to actually pay what it will actually cost to cover the additional 2,400 students who will be added to the rolls of the public schools next year. Continue reading →

Perennially ethically challenged Loudoun Republican Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) has come up with yet another explanation for why he is facing a legal proceeding to remove him from office for having corruptly enriched himself at public expense.

After telling us previously that it’s really “all about Obamacare”; that it is because he “supports traditional marriage”; that “the radical homosexuals” are out to “destroy his livelihood”; that “the Liberal Establishment” is trying to “discredit” him; that he is being victimized by “people who refuse to defend the flag”; and that his critics actually just “hate Sterling” . . . Eugene now says it’s really because he is too holy.

“I’m officially on the fringe because I fight for God’s law,” Delgaudio told something called the “Christian” News Service.

It’s always a pretty good sign that a crook’s legal defense is in trouble when he goes from adamantly denying he did anything to indignantly asserting that he did not take nearly as much money as they said he did.

Yesterday, Charlie King, the boyish attorney for perennially ethically challenged Loudoun Republican Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling), spoke to reporters outside the Loudoun Courthouse after his client’s latest appearance in the case to have him removed from office for corruption. While Delgaudio displayed his trademark buffoonery by bringing a snow shovel and pretending to shovel snow off the courthouse lawn for the benefit of the TV crews (you have to watch him here on WUSA9 to believe him), King explained that he planned to challenge the claim of former Delgaudio aide Donna Mateer that she had been required to spend most of her office hours — while on official time at taxpayer expense — making phone calls to solicit political campaign contributions for her boss.

As the special grand jury which investigated Delgaudio noted last year, such political work by taxpayer-paid staff is a blatant misuse of office and a misappropriation of public resources that would have led to an indictment, were it not for the bizarre loophole — now in the process of being closed by the state legislature — that exempts “part-time” employees including county supervisors from the penalties of the law in such cases.

But King said in fact he had proof that Mateer made “only” 107 phone calls from the fundraising list Delgaudio had provided her, and that he plans to challenge Mateer on this point when he cross-examines her.

This apparently marks a new milestone in the evolution of how politicians respond to scandal, which will secure for Loudoun a footnote in American political history as the place where “I am not a crook” was supplanted by “I am less of a crook than you might think.”

Perennially ethically challenged Loudoun Republican Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling), hoping to change the subject from his corrupt misuse of office to his totally unjust victimization by a conspiracy of evil liberals, announced through his attorney Charlie King yesterday that he was seeking to subpoena all records of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that relate to the SPLC’s designation of Delgaudio’s million-bucks-a-year “Public Advocate of the United States” organization as a hate group.

This is probably a simple abuse of the legal process, which is defined as legal filings with no other purpose than to generate publicity, cause inconvenience to the other party, or gain economic advantage or other ulterior purposes — since the SPLC has nothing whatever to do with the legal case against Delgaudio soon to be tried in Loudoun Circuit Court: namely whether he should be stripped of his position as Sterling supervisor under the provision in Virginia law that allows for the speedy removal of corrupt officials upon the finding by a court of misuse of office, neglect of duty, or incompetence.

A preliminary hearing is to be held this morning by the new special judge appointed to hear the matter.

But as long as Delgaudio is raising the issue of the SPLC’s designation, it’s an opportunity to address Delgaudio’s perennial phony assertion that the attacks upon him are a result merely of his “conservative” stand in “support of traditional marriage.”

Our Lame Local Media has passively bought into this line repeatedly as well, Continue reading →

Keeping up with the bizarre utterances and antics of perennially ethically challenged Loudoun Republican Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) would of course be a full time job even in normal times, but he’s been on a real roll the last few days that’s made it a special challenge.

As a public service, we’ll offer just the highlights:

• Eugene claims Pope Francis as “facebook friend”

On Eugene’s “Public Advocate” website on February 25, Eugene posted a press release with the headline “Pope Francis ‘Friends’ Eugene Delgaudio Heavenly Vision About Internet,” and concluding with the boast, “It is a wonderful thing to have God’s top leader as a facebook friend.”

You have to read the release pretty carefully to discover, however, that the sum total of the basis for Eugene’s assertion of electronic buddy status with His Holiness is that (a) the pope said the other day that the Internet is a “gift from God” and (b) Eugene said sort of the same thing back in 1999.

Eugene has managed to infuriate many otherwise kindred right-wing homophobic tea party “Christian” nut cases in Texas by mailing out dirty-trick literature on behalf of right-wing homophobic tea party “Christian” nut case U.S. Senate candidate Steve Stockman that dumps on other right-wing homophobic tea party “Christian” nut case candidates running in the Republican primary. The fact that former Delgaudio aide and acolyte Donny Ferguson is Stockman’s spokesman did not escape the notice of the right-wing Texas crowd, who have raised accusations of improper and possibly illegal coordination between Delgaudio’s nonprofit and a political campaign. One irked Texas right-wing “Christian” nut case has now sent out a Twitter feed featuring a phone interview he did with Delgaudio the other day in which he asked Delgaudio point blank about his connection with Donny. Delgaudio is heard on the recording asserting, “I haven’t seen or spoken to Donny Ferguson since 2007.” This might just possibly be untrue, given that Donny has been continuously doing paid work for Eugene in the years since, receiving tens of thousands of dollars (a lot of it at taxpayer expense) to produce Eugene’s “news[sic]letters” and postcard mailings.

• Maybe some intern did it

Delgaudio’s boyish attorney Charlie King announced with great fanfare today that, in connection with Eugene’s upcoming court case in which he is facing removal from office for corruption and misuse of office for private gain, he is seeking to subpoena the Southern Poverty Law Center, which labeled Eugene’s Public Advocate anti-gay organization a “hate group.”

Stunts like this are of course part and parcel of Delgaudio’s venerable strategy of trying to distract attention from the substance of the corruption charges against him and to claim that he is merely being picked on by the vast left-wing conspiracy.

But even by Eugene’s standards, the “logic” of this subpoena, which is seeking all documentation surrounding the SPLC’s hate group designation, is a marvel of legal reasoning. To quote Attorney King: “Was the SPLC’s decision to name Pubic Advocate a hate group made reluctantly, after careful study, or did some intern decide to send out a press release? This is an important question.”